Pixie, currently in theaters and on digital, is a film that's part classic Western and part gangster thriller. But somehow, the sum of its parts adds up to a delightful comedy that celebrates both family ties and independent adventure.

When the title character Pixie (Olivia Cooke from the upcoming House of the Dragon) sets out to destroy those behind her mother's death, she ropes plenty of unsuspecting people in - from best friends Harland and Frank (Daryl McCormack and Ben Hardy) to her own stepfather Dermot (Colm Meaney, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine). But as the stakes rise higher, their loyalty to her never wavers.

Related: Alec Baldwin Is A Deadly Gangster Priest In Pixie Movie Trailer & Poster

Star Colm Meaney spoke to Screen Rant about establishing the onscreen family dynamic, balancing it with his character's gangster lifestyle, and missing some very special deleted scenes.

pixie - cast

How did you find out about Pixie and what attracted you to the role?

Colm Meaney: Barnaby got in touch - he and his son Preston together; this was a project they'd been working on for quite a while. They sent it to my agent, I read it, and I loved it.

I don't often get scripts that are complete page-turners, and you just want to know what happened. It also made me laugh out loud reading it. It was such a pleasure, such a joy, such a crazy, off-the-wall, joyous script. I immediately said, "Yeah, sounds great." Then I had a couple of chats with Barnaby over the phone, and we agreed.

Was the collaborative process like, given that he's director and producer, but his son wrote it as you said.

Colm Meaney: It was just great. Barnaby is a delightful man. He's a lovely human being, and he's so experienced and so knowledgeable about the film industry. He's worked in pretty much every aspect of it, and he's got a great affection and understanding of actors.

It was an absolute joy watching the two of them work together. It was all pretty amazing. They're a wonderful pair. They're both very tall - Preston's even taller than his dad. You can tell they love each other very much. They sometimes go head-to-head, but they did it with such joy, because they were just so happy to be working together and working on such a great script. It was an absolute pleasure.

I loved your dynamic with Pixie, and how Dermot was a family guy on one hand and a gangster on the other. What was it like working with Olivia, and how would you describe the bond between yourself and Pixie?

Colm Meaney: She's a joy. She's a really talented actress with a wonderful range. She can do anything, you know? We got on really well from the get-go; we have a giggly, slightly sarcastic take on things - or more a kind of quizzical kind of take on things going on around us. That was very much, I think, from our characters. We didn't take everything at face value.

But we had a really good connection, and we had a great laugh doing it, which is partly due to the material.

It was really great how a different relationship with each of your kids shone through, even though there wasn't much time to establish them. How do view Dermot's relationship to his family?

Colm Meaney: I'm glad you say that, because we did lose a number of scenes from the early part of the film. Barnaby sent me a very apologetic email during the edit to say, "Colm, I'm really sorry about this, but we had to drop them." I think it was two or three scenes that established Dermot more and the family more. I completely understood that in terms of the pace of the film, because it was to get into the actual story more quickly. So, while I understood it, I was sort of like, "Shoot, I liked that."

Sometimes you do a picture, and there are scenes you don't mind losing, because they're nothing special. But everything in this felt kind of special, so I was a little saddened by that. I was a bit concerned, actually, that the dynamic with the family that we had, and that the contrast between his home life and his professional life, wouldn't really be established very well. So, I'm very glad to hear you say that.

Now I'm hoping there will be a Blu-ray or DVD that will include those deleted scenes.

Colm Meaney: There's a couple of scenes where I go about my professional business, which is threatening people and hurting people. Then there's another scene in the house with the kids. I think it was three scenes we dropped.

We did see a little bit of the backstory between Dermot and Pixie's mother. Did you discuss their relationship with Barnaby, or was there more history you may have developed for him in your mind?

Colm Meaney: Yeah. It was clear to me from the text, and I did talk to Barnaby a bit about his relationship with Pixie's mother. She was the love of his life. I think he was older than her, but they had a very strong and loving relationship. Which makes Pixie very special to him, even though she isn't his natural daughter. And that was very clear from the script.

What resonated most with you, either in terms of your character or the movie's themes?

Colm Meaney: I think it's that people are very complex, no one human being is just what they seem, and familial relationships are hugely important.

It's very hard to think of Pixie as a film with a message, because it's so off the wall. It's such an absurdist view of the world and of life, and yet it's very much in the literary tradition of Flann O'Brien. He was a very famous satirical Irish writer in the middle of the last century, and he wrote [The Dalkey Archive]. This guy would go down into a cave 40 feet under the sea near Dublin and have conversations with St. Augustine.

Absurd, but ridiculously plausible stuff like that. I found that Pixie was, in a way, in that tradition. I mean, the notion of gangster priests is ridiculous. But if you look at it from a slightly different angle, maybe it's not. It's all those things that are possible, if not necessarily probable, that they managed to work into the script, which made it so rich and entertaining.

pixie - dermot

How do you approach that absurdist realism as an actor? Do you take everything at face value or stylize anything?

Colm Meaney: No, absolutely straight. You got to play everything straight, and absolutely believe it. That's what makes it absurd.

You've already been in many action films and done your own physical work before. Was there anything unique about the priests vs. gangsters in Pixie? How did you film those sequences?

Colm Meaney: Those are pretty much straightforward. The big shoot out at the end was the one time that Barnaby use multiple cameras. On a miniature scale, it reminded me of the land rush scene in Far and Away, where Ron Howard used six cameras. They were 70 millimeter cameras that we were shooting on, but he knew he had maybe two takes.

We just did it in pieces, and we just put it together the way you traditionally structure a scene like that. Of course, we have a lot of fun doing all the bang, bang, bang. I think it was a particularly fun day, taking nuns hostages and all that sort of stuff.

How much do you think Dermot influenced Pixie to be able to one up everyone? How much of that is coming from him versus from her mom?

Colm Meaney: I think it's a combination of both. I think Dermot has given her a tolerance for coercion and violence, and her mother has given her the spirit to stand up for herself and to make her own way in the world. It's probably a combination of both.

I am not really a Western or gangster movie person, but I loved how this film combined elements of both. What are some of your favorite Western or gangster films?

Colm Meaney: We were actually just talking the other night about Intermission, and I thought it was, it was a lovely film. I'm actually going to do a documentary in Ireland about The Commitments, the films based on the three books that Roddy Doyle, because it's 30 years since we did The Commitments. They were films I was very fond of, obviously.

And then I remember great westerns like The Missouri Breaks and The Magnificent Seven. As a kid, they were hugely influential.

After the documentary, what is next for you? Is there a genre you'd like to tackle next, or something already in store?

Colm Meaney: There's two or three scripts we have lined up and ready to go. One was due to go April - or actually due to go in late February, but it was pushed. There's a lot of uncertainty though, because of COVID, though things seem to be more up and running in the UK than they are in the US at the moment. Two of the films that I'm supposed to be doing this year are in the UK, so hopefully they will go sooner rather than later.

I've actually done three films since August, all in the UK once they started up again. One film in particular that I'm looking forward to is Confession, with myself and Stephen Moyer. It's kind of a two-hander. It's very film noir and all takes place in a church over one evening, set in Boston. But we shot it near Ipswich in England, so it's all interior. It's an interior of the church.

More: Pixie Review: Olivia Cooke Is Magnetic In An Energetic Heist Film

Pixie is now playing in select theaters, on digital and on demand.